Richard Sullivan
Tuesday, March 18, 2025 – 7:00 pm Pacific Time (California)

Members and visitors can attend in person in San Francisco,
or register or join the meeting in progress on Zoom.

---

Program Description

Our March meeting will feature a presentation by Richard Sullivan showing time lapse movies of cacti coming into bloom. These are short movies that show the process of the flowers opening up over a period of from 8 hours up to a few days, shortened down to less than a minute. He will discuss how he sets up the equipment, what he has learned, and how he grows his plants. Richard has worked a lot with a group of South American cactus hybrids known as ×Chamaelobivia. These are part of the large Echinopsis group, with the miniature peanut cactus featuring prominently in their parentage, and drawing on the great range of colors found in Lobivia. He also grows South African bulbs, and these will be included in his presentation as well. It will be a colorful display!

About our Speaker

Richard was born in Ireland and came to the Bay Area in 1988. He has been interetested in plants since he was a teenager, focusing first on cacti and succulents, and then on alpine plants, perennials and shrubs. He and his wife Shari have a landscape business, Enchanting Planting, and they have built a great variety of gardens in the East Bay over the years. They started out in Oakland and moved to Orinda in 2000. Richard grows Agaves and Aloes and lots of South African bulbs. About 10 years ago, his interest in cacti was rekindled, and he began growing them from seed, raising lots of Echinopsis hybrids and working with the ×Chamaelobivia group to see if he could get new colors. It turned out to be a very rewarding experience, with his greenhouse bursting with color in May. Their flowering inspired him to start making time lapse movies to document the process.

Show & tell table: Aeonium on the succulent side, and Mammillaria & Rhipsalis on the cactus side plus anything else that’s looking good or in flower.

Featured grower: Richard Sullivan will have some plants to sell, and Lesley Shores and Jerry Slater will also be there.

Snack table:, There will be a shared spread, but we suggest bringing something every couple of months if you partake regularly. As a thought, we are often short on drinks. 

Meeting Agenda

7:00 Mingling and announcements
7:30 Formal presentation starts promptly with Society business
7:35 Show and Tell Table
7:50 Leg stretch
7:55 Featured presentation

---

Watch Online

On Zoom: Register or join the meeting in progress.

We will attempt to simulcast on our YouTube channel.

---